


Plans are Concepts

by cheshyrekaat



Series: Magic MCU [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:55:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24217012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshyrekaat/pseuds/cheshyrekaat
Summary: Part two of my, probably, massive mess of a story.Harry Potter isfinallygoing to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  He is about to get a crash course in expectation vs reality.  With his newly made friend, Draco Malfoy, and his irritable tutor, Severus Snape taking up a position of the Potions Professor, it is bound to be interesting.Meanwhile, the Jones family is bringing technology to the wizarding world and meddling in things they should probably leave alone.Not that that had ever stopped them before.
Series: Magic MCU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738999
Comments: 9
Kudos: 19





	1. Warded to the Nines

Severus looked between the two boys sizing each other up an rolled his eyes.

 _Of course_ it had been a risk to introduce the two of them, but Severus had wanted to make his years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry easier on himself. Draco, his godson, knew that Severus was Harry Potter’s tutor and while he wouldn’t admit it, wanted to now who was taking up his godfather’s attention.

Severus loved Draco, but he also cared a great deal for Harry Potter, a fact that was cemented over time, after he had found the boy shoved in a closet, close to dying, and had taken the steps to make sure the boy was properly cared for. 

They _still_ didn’t know who had set up the wards around the house and tampered the Dursleys. It may have been a Death Eater that was eager for some form of revenge against the savior, or something else, entirely. With the war a decade over and every thing back to what passed for normal, Severus didn’t think they would know anytime soon.

Harry was the one who finally broke the silence, “So, do you fly a broom? Severus won’t teach me to _actually_ fly, and I am not allowed a _flying broom_ where I live.”

It was just the right way to handle Draco. He whole face lit up as his almost favorite thing was brought up and he got the chance to teach someone all about it.

“Of course I do,” he said, fighting a grin, “come on, I’ll teach you how, we have extra brooms in the shed by the pitch.”

Severus followed when Draco grabbed Harry’s hand and pulled him out of the room and toward the french doors leading to the gardens. While Draco was a good flier, he had never taught anyone to fly before. And Harry, well, Harry liked high places. Better to be there to supervise than called to heal.

The two boys got along _entirely_ to well, in Severus’ opinion. 

It was the start of a strong friendship.

~~

Over the years, the Dursleys had become much more comfortable with the magical world than anyone could have expected. They were both completely non-magical, but with both a magical son and a _very_ magical nephew, they had had to adapt.

So they were quite used to seeing a goblin come round, four times a year, to check their property before coming inside to check them for any spells that might have made it through their wards and giving them a report. They still appreciated knowing, nine years later, that they and their nephew were being looked after.

They were fairly certain that they would never be able to actually repay either Severus Snape or Lucius Malfory for their rolls in the safety and health of their little family.

However, this time, instead of a goblin there was a human. A female human, dressed in what Petunia would call “laborer sheik,” work boots, carpenters pants and an emerald green, pullover, hooded sweatshirt. She was quite pretty, and the white blond color of her hair bore a striking resemblance to Lord Malfoy’s hair color.

Vernon stood for a moment gaping at her when he opened the door before he blinked and shook himself out of it when he heard Petunia asking if he was going to let her in. 

The woman in the doorway grinned and said, “Hello there, I’m Enyo Jones. I work with Gringott’s now and then, and they asked me for a consult on your property.”

Vernon stepped back and motioned her to come in through the door and he waved her over to the kitchen so they could sit and have tea. 

“Well,” he said motioning her to sit, “I’m Vernon Dursley and this is my wife, Petunia. What have you got for us?”

“First,” she said, pulling some papers out of her pocket, ”here is my ID, showing that I work for Gringotts and here is a letter from your usual goblin contacts stating that I am here to look at the wards. You guys should NEVER trust anyone that you don’t know on your property, especially not a magical.

“Second,” she smiled to take the sting out of her words, “I know that Mr. Snape and Lord Malfoy are really worried about what might happen to Harry now that he will be back in the middle of the magical world. I read the reports on what was found, here, and I agree that it isn’t worth taking any chances with him or with yourselves.

“So I have here,” she pulled out several jewelry boxes from another pocket, “some personal wards for you and the boys. There is no telling if someone might try for your son in order to get your nephew. 

“Have a look at these and see what you might like for yourselves and what the boys might like and I’ll explain what they do.”

After Petunia looked over Enyo’s ID and paperwork, she nodded to Vernon and he started opening the various boxes. They were full of different types of jewelry, mostly necklaces and bracelets, as well as couple of rings. There were some leather bracelets strung with intricate metal beads that they thought would work for the boys.

Enyo explained that each item was spelled unbreakable, was automatically resizing so they would shrink or grow as needed, tracking runes and they were made to be keyed to the wearer so no one else could remove them, nor would they catch on things. The wards build into them were against portkeys, unwilling apparition, magic with a malicious intent and they also had tracking built into them. Each piece also had an emergency portkey to Malfoy Manor, the password to be set for each wearer. She hadn’t put anything against non-magical attacks, knowing that the boys could fend off most attackers long enough to get away.

“Now, I see that both the boys are not here,” she mused, “will they be back, today?”

Vernon nodded, “Yes, they should both be home for dinner.”

“Ok, would you mind me coming back later this evening to activate these for them? Which ever they pick, and a backup?”

Vernon looked toward Petunia, again, for approval and said, “Yes, that should be fine, how about 7pm?”

Enyo smiled at the couple, “That would be fine with me. Now, we need to talk about the property.”

As the conversation progressed, Vernon and Petunia relaxed and let it wash over them. They didn’t understand much of what Enyo said, but they did understand that someone had been attempting to tamper with their wards, unsuccessfully, and this young woman was going to shore them up.

What Enyo didn’t tell them, was that she was going to add a kind of magical tracer to the wards. It would “tag” whomever tampered with her magics and would lead her right to them. It was something new she had been playing with. Like the dye packs and transmitters used by banks. Well, that was the concept, anyway, just with magic. It would alert Gringotts bank that it had been activated, and anyone would be able to follow the “signal.”

“Alright,” she continued, “the personally warded jewelry will also stave off any compulsion charms or potions. Nothing that can change how someone thinks or behaves. With the wards that have been attempted, that seems to be something to watch out for. 

“If they had been successful, there might have been enough time to make any changes in behavior or thinking in to habit. Like, reluctance to do school work or excel, increased recklessness, things like that. We have been on top of it, and it is suspicious that there had been increased activity _this year_. When Harry will be headed back into the wizarding world.

“My theory is, someone wants him to project a certain image.”

Petunia was incensed, “Like we would raise the boys to be stupid.”

She huffed while Vernon frowned and nodded decisively. Enyo just grinned at them.

“This is why we check quarterly,” she said, cheerfully. “Now, I am going to take off until seven. See you then.”

Vernon escorted her to the door with a _very_ polite goodbye.

Once Enyo was gone, Petunia got up from the kitchen table and walked into the living room where their fireplace was.

Goblin paperwork was impossible to forge, but better safe than sorry, as Enyo herself had reminded them. She took a pinch of floo powder from the decorative jar on the mantle before she grabbed and dropped the pillow used for this purpose on the floor.

She threw the power in, stuck her head into the fireplace and called out “Gringotts London Branch!”

She would make sure that it actually was the goblins that had sent the young woman to them.

~~

Enyo was pleased as she left the Dursleys house. 

She had accomplished her goal, giving them a warning and giving them a way to protect themselves and the children. She would be making sure that her brother had all the same protections, and maybe a couple more. He was adorable and would be more than happy to wear something she had made just for him.

As she made her way to Diagon Alley so that she could access the London magical district, she thought about Cloverleaf Manufacturing’s latest venture. Her mother’s company had recently made the move to sell more directly to the magical public. They had several stores in the magical districts of the eastern seaboard of the United States and they had recently decided to open a small, boutique style store in London’s magical district.

Enyo had finally gotten around to making small, personal electronics work with magic. She had also gotten together with some savvy magicals who knew their way around computers to start what was basically the magical internet and communications network. With the “handshake” program she had written so long ago, the programming that they used was more than able to talk to, and piggyback on, non-magical networks. 

With her mother’s business and its connections, it was even done legally, in both worlds.

So she was going to hit the store and help herself to the stock, with the proper paperwork, of course. (When your book keepers were goblin trained, you took your life in your hands if you fucked up the paperwork!) She had some people to outfit.

Walking through Diagon Alley was always interesting. She had been introduced to some of her dad’s friends, and it had, of course, gotten around the wizarding world that Lord Malfoy had an illegitimate child. The “upper echelon” had tried to make it into a ridiculous scandal, but as neither Lucius or Gloria acted like her existence was shameful, at all, they hadn’t gained much traction. As for Enyo, well, the less said about how irreverent she was about it all, the better.

Magic help anyone that said a negative word to Draco about it, though. All three of his natural family members, much less Cassandra and Severus, were vehement in their protection of the boy. Gloria had actually made more than one “lady” cry.

The whispers that followed her were amusing and only half of it was related to her father. The rest, well, that was all just her, and her refusal to cater to the antiquated way British wizards chose to live. Her clothing choices certainly stood out and definitely something she didn’t worry herself about. In America, no one cared. Hell, in the non-magical world, no one cared. On her own, she was intelligent, powerful and had carved her own place out in the world with the help of her family and these morons weren’t going to change that.

So she strode her way through the ally and past the major shopping plaza and made her way into the high-end neighborhoods. The area where the more well off, but not only old money, had their homes. The equivalent of where she lived in Manhattan; the Upper East Side, but magical. She was pleased to see that many of the homes had electricity running into them. This was an _ideal_ place for their store.

 _Might have to get a place over here,_ she thought as she wandered to the address where the store was located.

~~

Harry was practically vibrating with excitement. 

His aunt and uncle had told him and Dudley that _Enyo Jones_ was coming to see them after supper. He knew who that was, even if Dudley didn’t understand why he was so excited. She was Draco’s older sister, and everything he had heard about her was _ah-mazing_. 

Sure, Draco probably exaggerated some of it, but even if only _half_ was true, she was still awesome. She was only nineteen and had three masteries, two master’s degrees and was combat trained. She worked freelance in both the magical and non magical worlds. Heck, she knew and worked with _Tony Stark_ , you know, Iron Man. 

And now, he was going to meet her.

He totally wasn’t bouncing out of his chair, no matter what Aunt Petunia said. He was just a little bit excited. He did manage to eat, though. Neither his aunt or uncle would let him get away with just pushing his food around on his plate. He couldn’t help it, even when Dudley kept shooting him funny looks.

The four of them had just finished picking up the kitchen and getting the tea service ready when the door bell rang.

“I’ll get it!” Harry shouted, running our of the kitchen before anyone else could even move.

He didn’t even pause when he heard Uncle Vernon chuckling behind him as he followed him to the door. He wrenched the door open and grinned up at the highly amused young woman standing on the stoop. 

Wow, she was pretty. He didn’t think he had ever seen anyone so pretty. Her hair was lighter even than Draco’s and she had _purple_ eyes. He didn’t even blink when her eyes flicked from him up to his uncle before her smile grew wider and she bit back a laugh.

“Hello, young man,” she said, easily, “you must be Mr. Potter.”

He quickly shook himself out of his stupor, “Hi! I’m Harry, you’re Enyo, right?”

“Harry,” Vernon sighed behind him, “let her in the door.”

Harry deflated for a moment at the reminder of manners before he smiled again and stepped back.

“Please come in,” he said, and stumbled a little a he backed into his uncle.

Enyo just continued to smile as she entered the house and greeted Vernon and Petunia before being introduced to Dudley. They settled around the sitting room and Vernon laid the jewelry boxes out on the low coffee table in front of the couch.

“Did you guys decided what you wanted?,” Enyo asked them, gesturing to the jewelry.

The Dursleys sat back as the two boys eagerly reached forward for their top picks. They had similar tastes, and picked out the things that she had thought would work best for them. She was surprised when Harry picked out a wide, titanium thumb ring that had an amethyst inlay with an intricate set of runes webbed out over the surface. She had included that one on a whim, not because she thought anyone would pick it.

Petunia had picked out a slender, gold bracelet and some small gold hoop earrings. Vernon had slid a matching bracelet, in a more masculine style, and a belt buckle in front of himself. Dudley picked a hardened leather cuff that was tooled with intricate patterns and a necklace with a small, stone pendant that would set just in the hollow of his throat. Harry picked out the ring, a hammered, silver cuff and a necklace in the same style of Dudley’s, just with a different stone.

Once they had all picked out their preferences, she set the portkey passwords for them and taught them how to activate them. She did warn them that they would likely become, at the very least, motion sick if they had to use them. Magical travel, she told them, left _much_ to be desired.

“Except flying,” Harry piped in, grinning at her.

“Except flying,” she agreed as she returned his smile, “but, you’ll be disappointed to know that most wizards only fly for sports and leisure, not travel.”

She finally had to laugh at the mighty scowl she received in response to her assertion.


	2. Harry's First Term

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry arrives and shakes up the status quo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so I gave up on dialog heavy.

Contrary to what anyone else might have thought, Harry Potter and the Dursleys felt that first term of Harry’s first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry went quite well. 

His year started out with him being rather irritated by his so called fame. He was accosted on a less than hourly basis and reminded of the insensitivity of _human beings_ en mass and was less than thrilled to be in a place where he couldn’t get away from it.

The first time that someone grabbed him, unexpectedly, was the last, however. It was NOT a good thing to startle him, after all. He’d already been training for years to protect himself, physically, and the story of how Harry had thrown a rude third year across the hall with little effort and without magic got around _fast_. 

So, by the end of his first week, he was thrilled to get a package from his aunt and uncle, with a letter, detailing what it was and why they were giving it to him. 

“It” turned out to be a cell phone. A rather fancy, blue and bronze, personalized cell-phone. He was assured in his letter that it would work at Hogwarts. In fact, the ambient magic at Hogwarts would power the thing, so he wouldn’t need to worry about the lack of electricity in the castle.

It had a set of pre-programmed contacts, including his aunt, uncle, cousin, Severus and Draco. The phone also had a set of programs that he would find very helpful when researching for his school papers. (Helpfully, the apps linked to articles on the various branches of magic that he was learning, all with resources listed, so that he could reference the books the research had been done in.) He had had _no idea_ that magicals had stuff like this, at all. He rather thought that the stylized “Jones, LTD” stamped on the back spoke volumes about what, exactly, he was holding.

Now, he had a way to communicate with his family, could actually speak to them, even, and was much faster than an _owl_. This made boarding school much more palatable to him. 

The first week also had a couple of muggle raised student approaching him to talk about a self-defense club. They, too, had been training in martial arts during their childhood and wanted to keep up with it. They started a club, with the approval of Professor Flitwick, Harry’s Head of House. Professor Flitwick had been a champion dueler; he was thrilled to see a group of children who understood physical fitness was important for overall stamina and was _fascinated_ by these muggle forms of combat. It didn’t seem to be a far stretch from how his goblin relatives trained their young. The weapons just weren’t enchanted or magically enhanced. Yet.

The second week had him confronted by a muggle born with less friendly intentions.

He was sitting out by the lake, enjoying the mild weather and tapping out a text inviting Draco to come join him when a shadow fell over him. He finished his text before he lowered his phone and looked up at the rather unfortunately bushy haired girl looming over him.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“That won’t work here,” she said in such a rude tone that he almost got up and left.

“Alright,” he said amiably as his phone chimed to let him know he had received a message. 

He picked it up and chuckled at Draco’s response to his invitation. Draco would be out momentarily. He looked back up at the girl when her shadow didn’t move away from him. Her face looked like she’d been sucking on lemons.

“What?” he asked while rolling his eyes at her.

“That’s impossible,” she shrieked at him, “Muggle technology doesn’t work in magically saturated locations.”

She didn’t notice Draco coming up behind her.

“I suppose,” he drawled at her back while she jumped, “that it is probably good that it isn’t muggle, then, isn’t it?”

Draco didn’t pause in his movement and stepped forward to settle down in the grass next to Harry as he pulled out his own phone, a sleek green and silver model. He looked up at the girl, a Gryffindor, he could see by her robes.

“Cloverleaf Manufacturing has existed before I was even born, Miss,” Draco said as neutrally as possible, “and they have been working on integrating non-magical technology with magic since their inception, with quite a lot of success.”

“However,” he continued, still looking at the girl, “Jones, LTD makes much higher end personal technology. These phones, for example, are ‘smart phone’ and are designed specifically for magical students.”

“ _I’ve_ never heard of any such companies,” the girl said, “so how do I know they exist?”

“Look, Miss,” Harry said, testily, “I am fairly certain that we don’t have to prove anything to you. Think what you would like.”

And with that, he dismissed her. She obviously wasn’t worth the time it would take to explain that she was not the end-all-be-all of information.

He and Draco ignored her as she huffed and stormed away, fuming. They smiled at each other and Draco winked.

“I am pretty sure there is going to be a flood of purchases, after this.”

“Well,” Harry speculated, “It’s 50/50 whether or not they will thank you for it.”

Draco laughed and said, “That’s what they get for wanting to modernize Wizarding Britain.”

~~

By the time winter break rolled around, Severus Snape was _thrilled_ that the students were off to see their families and there would be weeks without them in the castle.

He had plans to spend some of his days with both the Malfoys and the Dursleys, but he had more than a week before he would be doing that. He needed it. Introducing Harry to Draco had had the best possible outcome; they were best friends. He hadn’t thought too much about what that would mean, though.

The boys were involved in just about everything to do with one another. 

Harry was the darling of all the teachers. He had harassed all of them with questions about their fields, far beyond what he had been expected to study. The kid not only wanted to _learn_ , he wanted to apply. He wanted to push the boundaries of what was known in ways that were almost unheard of in students.

Which prompted the start of several clubs. 

Harry had a way of speaking about things that caught a person’s attention. So, as interested as he was, and as many questions as he asked, eventually other students wanted to be involved. And so, for the first time, Hogwarts had academic clubs. The teachers were thrilled. They were having a field day sending requests to the board to get permission to bring in guest speakers, have field trips and so on.

And Draco had been with him and involved every step of the way. _Clearly_ , his sister’s influence on him and his interests.

Lucius had called Severus several times, in absolute glee, over how Dumbledore was reacting to having his school overrun by children that actually wanted to learn more then _the bare minimum_. It was forcing the Headmaster to focus on the school he ran, rather than his political career for a change. (Severus had underestimated the usefulness of his new phone. He had to admit, he loved it.)

After Harry’s phone had become common knowledge, a few more had popped up here and there around Hogwarts. He imagined that there would be many, many more after the students returned from Christmas and Yule celebrations. He had noticed, along with the other professors, that the papers he received from the students with the appropriate phones were much better researched than others. 

Having easier access to information was doing them a world of good.

Miss Hermione Granger, of Gryffindor, was just about having fits about it, though. _She_ didn’t have a phone, so it was _unfair_ that other students had one that they were allowed to use. She had been quite vocal about it, until she had been put in her place by a student that, surprisingly, had gone to primary school with her.

She’d had a home computer that she had been allowed to use for her assignments, regardless of whether or not other students had them to use, so, how was this any different? Well, it wasn’t, and she’d had to admit it.

Really, she was just upset that she wasn’t at the top of the class and wanted to blame the technology, rather than face the fact that she was not the best/brightest/cleverest student that Hogwarts had ever seen. 

Severus really didn’t understand, but it also wasn’t really his problem.

Regardless, he needed a break. Both from the students in general and his two boys in particular. He loved them to death, but they were a handful. He didn’t know _how_ their families lived with the, really.

He now understood why it had taken two woman and a goblin horde to raise Enyo Jones. He was so very, _very_ glad that he hadn’t met her until she was in her late teenage years.

Especially when, for Christmas, Enyo sent him the first copy of her copyrighted, patented version of the periodic table for the most common potions ingredients. She had made it for him, she’d said in her note, so that he could better teach the kids with a chemistry background about common ingredients and their reactions to each other, as well as how to make substitutions.

_Damn that girl_ , he thought with a grin, _and her ingenuity._

~~

When Harry Potter had been sorted into Ravenclaw, Professor Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress and Head of House Gryffindor, had been _almost_ appalled. 

She lost the betting pool about where the savior of the wizarding world would be sorted by a long margin. She had been sure that the child of two, strong members of her house would have stayed into same house.

By the time the first month of the term had gone by, she was grateful. The child was _menace_. He had some new fangled technology that the other children were both jealous and disdainful of, depending on their upbringing. That Draco Malfoy _also_ had the same had a clear margin leaning toward jealous.

When he had first come to her with transfiguration questions, she was delighted. He was very smart and incredibly inquisitive. And then he’d started asking questions she didn’t have answers for. It was maddening. She had gotten her mastery, yes, but that had been years ago. She could admit, only to herself, that she had been busy with the school and her house duties, so had let keeping up to date with the newest innovations and information about her field of, so called, expertise. 

He had taken her deflections and redirected questions with equanimity and had gone on to form a club _full_ of like minded students. And that was just the beginning.

He had done the same with _every_ professor in the school. (Except Professor Quirrell, who refused to meet with Harry. That just meant that a DADA club formed with out his input and with the approval of Severus Snape, who had a Defense Mastery as well as his Potions Mastery.)

As an academic administrator, she was thrilled to have so many interested students attending the school. As a teacher who wasn’t quite up to snuff, it was a nightmare. So, in a desperate move to stave off a bout of depression over her bubbling feeling of inadequacy, she had contacted the board about having guest speakers and field trips.

The board was _ecstatic_ about the whole thing. Frankly, Minerva had mused privately, there were few things more terrifying than a gleeful Lucius Malfoy. This was giving the board _ideas_ of what kind of long term changes they could introduce to the school, up to and including keeping the various professor’s credentials up to snuff.

If you wanted to teach something, you should know it, after all.

And Hogwarts was supposed to be _THE BEST_. How could you be the best if you couldn’t really accommodate the needs of exceptional students?

So, yes. She had initially been regretful that Harry Potter had not been sorted into Gryffindor, but now, before the beginning of the second term of school, she was incredibly happy that he was a headache for Professor Flitwick to deal with.

~~

Being home for the winter holidays was amazing for Draco. 

He had enjoyed his first term at school, but he was happy to be home. He had missed his parents and his sister. He had also missed his godfather, Severus. Professor Snape was a completely different man, after all.

He was thrilled to be in _his_ house, with _his_ room and things and house elves and so on and so on. It was great. _And_ he got to see Harry away from school. Harry was his best friend and he was great, always, but he could get super wrapped up in his studies, more than Draco was inclined to, sometimes. Not that he didn’t love all the clubs and the odd thing they were learning here and there at the school.

Once they had gotten Granger to stop arguing with _every little thing_ that wasn’t written in stone, anyway. The girl seemed to only care about things that had been proved. He wondered if her head would explode if she ever saw his sister do magic. Enyo didn’t need spells _or_ a wand, she never had. And after she had learned to channel through a wand, hadn’t used one again.

His lessons from Enyo were why he was teaching a small study group (not a club) about wandless magic. There were only four of them: him, Harry, Dean Thomas of Gryffindor and Hannah Abbot of Hufflepuff. The group had come about one day after a discussion in the Magical Theory club of accidental magic and why you could have displays as a child, but suddenly not after you got a wand. He was excited to talk to his sister and get some more ideas about teaching them to both use a wand effectively and use wandless magic naturally, to the extent that they could.

All in all, Draco was ready for this break. Yule and Christmas had _always_ been extravagant at his house and he was as excited for the season, this year, as he ever was.

~~

The fact that Dudley was wrapped up in a glompping hug by Harry as soon as he stepped out of the car when he got home was a huge relief.

His parents had talked to the both of them about going to separate boarding schools and how it would only be natural for them to develop there own interests and own friends. As a natural consequence of that, the two boys might not remain as close as they would have going to the same school.

He had received a cell phone at the same time that Harry had, and they had immediately started texting each other and sending pictures of interesting thing to each other. And while Harry had seemed excited and happy to hear from Dudley, every time they talked, Dudley was worried that he couldn’t be as exciting as _magical_ friends.

Maybe, though, that didn’t matter to Harry.

The thought and the hug left him limp and relieved. He hugged Harry back just as tightly for a minute before he pulled back and looked Harry over.

“C’mon in, Harry,” he grinned, “I have got to tell you about the prank that got pulled at our last dinner before break.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Remember, comments and kudos are love!


	3. Rumors and Contracts

The students of Hogwarts settled into the winter term fairly quickly.

Severus’ prediction had come true and a good number of the student had returned with the specialized cell phones, which led to a good number of rules to be put into place regarding said cell phone. Not that Severus had had any problems in _his_ classes with children misbehaving with them.

There was also a less than subtle change in the dressing habits of the muggle raised and half-blood students during their leisure hours. It seemed that having THE Harry Potter being quite unselfconscious about where he came from and what kind of clothing he liked to wear had a great impact on the school populace.

Most of the professors hadn’t seen so much denim in their lives.

Minerva found it especially entertaining, how the so-called purebloods were now dramatically and obviously outnumbered. The purebloods didn’t know what to do. The subtle bullying that went on in regards to _traditional_ wizard dress and behavior hadn’t been challenged in recent memory, and certainly not successfully. When asked, Harry just laughed and said that while he could appreciate tradition, he didn’t see the point in living in the past or in paying for tailor made casual wear.

And he did know about and appreciate Wizarding Traditions, Severus had made sure of it.

But, no matter, the term went forward, with few hiccups, and the clubs went on as before. 

The school board had decided that guest speakers and field trips would have to wait for the next year. That way, the leaders of the clubs could take time to hash out the schedule of speakers, field trips and in house events they wanted to have. That schedule would then be presented to the Headmaster and the School Board to be edited and approved.

Other than that, Hogwarts was business as usual. Quidditch rivalries, House scuffles, classroom explosions, misbrewed potions…an otherwise normal year.  
Right up until the rumors of a three-headed dog behind a flimsy, locked door in the third floor corridor, on the right hand side, went around the school like wildfire.

~~

Lucius Malfoy was not pleased.

And when Lucius Malfoy was not pleased, he tended to do things about it. Such as what he was doing, now. Now, he was meeting with the Hogwarts Board of Governors. He had spent the last week contacting other parents and finding out if they were hearing the same thing from their children that he had from his own child.

He had thought it bizarre when Draco told him that Headmaster Dumbledore had announced that a floor was out of bound on pain of a “painful death,” but to later hear that there were rumors going around about a damn cerberus being the reason, well.

He was not pleased, _at all_.

Neither was the rest of the Board. Hysterical inquiries from multiple parents into why such a _dangerous creature_ was in the school. Much less whether of not it was actually there. Now, the Board was trying to figure out how to get an investigator into the school. They couldn’t really do anything on base suspicions without proof of some kind. Not one of them was going to ask any of the students, who were _children_ , thank you.

In desperation, one of the board members, Sawyer Landry, had grabbed the backlog of requests made to the board by the professors. Edward Foster was reading over her shoulder and exclaimed in triumph.

“Ha!” he shouted, “found it!”

“Found what,” Sawyer asked, trying to grab back the parchment that she hadn’t had time to read.

“It’s a request from the _Deputy Headmistress_ to have the wards renewed as quickly as we can,” Edward said, grinning, “seems that the Goblins haven’t been out to fulfill their yearly contract for quite some time.”

Lucius straightened out of his tired slump, “Really? That will require looking into, all on it’s own.”

The other board members started to look downright gleeful.

“Hey, Malfoy,” Grayson Graham asked with a sly smile, “weren’t you just bragging about that kid of yours? The one that is a genius at wards? Works with the Goblins, doesn’t she?”

Lucius felt a grin take over his face as he summoned blank parchment and pulled out the fountain pen that the child in question had gifted to him. This would be perfect, the manager of the Gringots in London always loved to go after anyone who mucked about with their contracts.

He was also sure that Enyo would love the excuse to see the school her little brother was going to.

~~

Enyo put down the proposal she had received from Gringotts and grabbed her phone and rang Tony.

“Speak to me.”

“Oh, you added words,” she joked at him, “I guess you learned your lesson, then?”

“Yes, I did,” she could hear the scowl in his voice, “Please don’t make me only able to make dog noises, again.”

“Well, don’t talk to me like I’m a dog, and I won’t,” she grinned, even if he couldn’t see her.

“Anyway,” she said, sobering, “I am going to be out of town for a couple days, the bank asked me to check something out in Scotland.”

“During Imbolc? That’s the first couple days in February, right?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she had recently taught him about the magical power days and what magicals used them for, “the perfect time to, ostensibly, renew some wards.”

“Hang on,” he said, “ Can J get a visual right now?”

“Sure,” she chirped, “Sal, connect with J, would you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Salazar’s response came with alacrity.

She rolled over to the large digital display in her study just as it bloomed to life. She grinned at Tony who rolled his eyes at her.

“Why didn’t we just start with this?” he asked, grumbling.

“Because I don’t tend to talk with my hands full, much,” she replied.

“That is only because you don’t tend to talk on the phone, anyway. You like a personal touch too much for that,” he reminded her. “So, tell me about what _else_ you’ll be doing, other than renewing some wards.”

She hummed for a moment while she considered how to word what she could tell him.

“Well,” she started, “I won’t know exactly what I am doing until I go in for a briefing. The proposal I received was to execute an existing contract that Gringotts has with the Hogwarts Board of Governors. The proposal also mentioned the Board having additional concerns that I was suited to address.”

She watched as Tony settled in and gave her all of his attention. Flattering, to be sure.

“Any idea what those concerns might be,” he asked her, folding his hands against his work desk and leaning forward with interest.

“Oh, the Board of Governors is dealing with a bunch of hysterical parents, right now. There is a rumor that there is cerberus in the school.”

“Like a three-headed dog from hell? That cerberus?” he asked, eyebrows climbing his forehead. 

She hummed agreement, “I have told you before that many varieties of ‘mythological’ creatures actually exist, remember?”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, “I’ve even met a couple of them, but they aren’t _three headed dogs_.”

“Well, anyway,” she said, waving off his incredulity, “I imagine I will be investigating that, and possibly why it is there. But, I won’t know until I go talk to the goblins and the Board representative.”

“So, did the Board ask for you?” he questioned, “or the goblins?”

She grinned, “I might know someone on the Board.”

Tony laughed, “Oh good, I hope you can tell me about it, after. Anyway you can get me video?”

She laughed, “I am sure that I can try, but only of the cerberus.”

~~

“So,” Enyo asked carefully, “what am I _not_ allowed to do while at Hogwarts?”

The contract in front of her _seemed _to give her an immense amount of leeway while in the school. And, it was signed by the Deputy Headmistress, Professor McGonagall, herself.__

__It turned out that Dumbledore had just kept rescheduling the upkeep of the wards. McGonagall had only recently taken over the majority of the vendor and contract relations that were needed by Hogwarts. When she had received a routine inquiry from the goblins about renewing the wards according to the existing contract, she had done her own research into the agreement and promptly contacted the Board about the lapse and getting it done ASAP. Enyo could only think of a couple reasons why someone who wanted the wards renewed would give her so few guidelines in a contract like this._ _

__The woman disagreed with whatever was going on at the school and wanted something to be done about it, in a way that wouldn’t implicate her involvement._ _

__“You can’t disrupt classes,” Lucius told her while trying not to look smug._ _

__“Will I have an escort while there?” she was still looking for the limitations._ _

__“Is there anything in the contract about it?” he asked in return._ _

__“This is going to be interesting,” she said, returning the not quite smug look to her father, “does anyone know that I have a sibling in the school?”_ _

__“Not at present, nor does it have any bearing on the contract. You are at liberty to complete it as you see fit,” the goblin in charge of the new contract broke in to the conversation. “Deputy Headmistress McGonagall didn’t ask for too many details. She wants the wards renewed. Whatever you find while taking care of that, well. I am sure you are familiar with the term ‘plausible deniability’?”_ _

__“And the Board?” she asked them to clarify._ _

__“We want the wards renewed, of course,” Lucius said. “And, it would be lovely if we know about anything that is a result of them laying fallow for so long.”_ _

__“Alright, I can do that. This contract gives me _plenty_ of time to do it,” she stood up and leaned across the table to shake Lucius’ and the goblin’s hands. “I will be there the day after tomorrow.”_ _

__She spoke in gobbledegook to the goblin overseeing the contract arrangements. He grinned and reached into a drawer and pulled out a stack of folders and passed them over. Enyo thanked him and bowed before she once more smiled at her father and left the office._ _

__After she left the Gringotts branch, Enyo apparated to the house in Manhattan. She would need some time to go over the paperwork. She knew that the files in her hand would include the original ward scheme and any upgrades they made or changes that had been made between the dates of renewal._ _

__She settled out on the garden terrace off her floor with the files, a tablet and Salazar in her ear._ _

__She and Tony had finally worked out the kinks in the hardware to make his holo-displays work with her programming language. It was amazing and would be another application they could develop for use by magicals._ _

__A fact that she was going to demonstrate that thoroughly in the next few days._ _

__She flipped open the oldest files and started going over the floor plans for the castle. It was certainly interesting. She couldn’t wait to figure out _why_ anyone had made staircases that moved in a castle full of children. For all that Hogwarts was supposed to be some great learning institution, it didn’t seem to be set up for children, at all._ _

__She mulled it over while she scanned the plans into her tablet. She supposed that the castle was built as a stronghold against people hunting magicals, she could understand that kind of passive protection, but it should have been changed, given the updated protections and new wards as time went on._ _

__When she was done going through the files, she was able to pull up a three dimensional representation of the castle, out to the grounds and the property it was on. She could break it down into as small or as large and area as she wanted, and there were representations of the wards that were _supposed_ to be there all over the map. Once she made sure she had everything, she shrank the files down, just in case something happened and she needed the hard copies._ _

__She finally stood and made her way down to the kitchen. It wasn’t so late that her mother wouldn’t be up. They could catch up and maybe Missy would make her a meal. It seemed like forever since she been home for any length of time since her MIT graduation._ _

__~~_ _

__Enyo Jones was certainly not what Minerva McGonagall was expecting._ _

__She was quite young and dressed in tailored, muggle-style clothing. She was wearing some kind of pocketed pants with work boots and a peacoat buttoned snugly under her chin with a bright purple scarf around her neck. Her spill of white blonde spiral curls were more noticeable than her purple eyes, until she was close enough to see the depth of the color in them. Seeing her bright eyes and smile, Minerva had a premonition of complete and utter disaster._ _

__They might as well be letting a Veela loose in the school. And considering that the young woman’s looks obviously connected her to the Malfoys, it might be the truth._ _

__She sighed internally as she observed Enyo looking around the grounds and castle. This was going to be a long couple of days. She shoved all of her doubts and dread deep down, there was no way the goblins would have sent someone less than able to complete this job to the school. Her doubts were about how that students were going to react to this, not about the job._ _

__Enyo’s eyes stopped flicking around and settled onto Minerva._ _

__“Deputy Headmistress McGonagall?” she asked, stretching her hand out in introduction. “I’m Enyo Jones.”_ _

__Minerva excepted her hand and was glad of the firm handshake she received._ _

__“Professor McGonagall is fine,” she smiled at the younger woman, “The other is _such_ a mouthful.”_ _

__“Thank you, Professor,” Enyo smiled at her as she fell into step with Minerva and entered the castle._ _

__They made small talk on their way to the great hall. The plan was for Enyo to be introduced to the students at breakfast so the students would know who she was while she was in the school. A guest suite had been readied for Enyo during her stay and the professors and prefects would be aware that she might have odd hours while she was there._ _

__Some of Minerva’s suspicions about Enyo’s parentage were confirmed when they got closer to the Slytherin table and a small blond boy jumped up and shouted._ _

__“Enyo!” was heard across the hall as Draco launched himself at her once he got into range, “What are you _doing_ here?”_ _

__In the silence that fell around that hall, they heard an eager Harry Potter break the silence._ _

__“Enyo is here? Brilliant!” he said loudly as he, too, scuttled his way from the Ravenclaw table over to the small scene happening across the way._ _

__Young Harry Potter skidded to a stop just short of barreling into the two siblings and interrupting their embrace. Enyo laughed as she pulled away from her the young Malfoy._ _

__“If you have just a little patience, Professor McGonagall will make the necessary announcements at the end of breakfast,” Enyo smiled down at Draco and then looked to the other young man. “Cheers, Harry, how are you?”_ _

__“Oh, I’m great,” Harry started babbling, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Things are going well, and so far, we are having a very good year. We have all these clubs going on and next year we are going to have field trips and guest speakers! Oh, you should come for one!”_ _

__“Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy,” Minerva interrupted the boys, “go back and finish your meals. I am sure that Miss Jones will make time to visit with you both while she is here.”_ _

__Both boys pouted and dragged their feet, but the went back to their tables without argument. Minerva rolled her eyes and waved Enyo along to the head table. There was an open seat between her usual seat and Severus Snape. Hopefully, the two would get along._ _

__Of course, Minerva had nothing to fear, there, the two seemed to know each other, if the heavy sarcasm from Severus and the heavy ribbing from Enyo were any indication. It made sense, she supposed, if Enyo was a Malfoy that she would know her younger relative’s godfather._ _

__About mid-way through the meal, when most of the students had arrived and none of the students had left for class, yet, Minerva stood and got the attention of the hall with a small firework._ _

__“Students,” she said, with a carrying voice,” as I am sure that you have all noticed, we have a guest with us today. Enyo Jones will be here for a few days doing some repair work around the castle. If you see her about, she is on Hogwarts and Gringotts business, so leave her be. Thank you.”_ _

__She once again sighed internally as she sat back down and Enyo gave the students a little wave and a grin before she went back to teasing Severus. Too many of them were staring, half of them dumb-struck. Enyo had removed her scarf and jacket and was in a form fitting, black waistcoat over a purple long sleeved blouse that didn’t quite match her eyes._ _

___Well_ , she mused thoughtfully, _either she will handle it, or she won’t_._ _

__Her smug grin was entirely internal. It seemed to be a year for shaking things up._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Remember, comments and kudos are love!


	4. The Heart of Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enyo heads to Hogwarts to check out the wards and find out what's the what about the third floor corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I struggled with this one. For sure.

Albus Dumbledore was on the verge of panicking. 

He has been going over proposed bills going before the Wizengamot when he felt his connection to the wards of Hogwarts fail. The wards were still there, but they were no longer connected to him or feeding him information in the background. He stood up and hurried out of his office to find the deputy headmistress to see if her connection had been severed, as well.

As he made his way to the trasfiguration classroom, he kept trying to connect to the wards. He was not successful by the time he rapped on the door and stuck his head into the classroom

“Professor McGonagall,” he interrupted her lecture, “a moment, if you would.”

She leveled an unimpressed stare at him before she nodded and turned back to her class of sixth years.

“Mr. Clary,” she addressed one of the boys briskly, “begin the demonstration, if you would. I shall return, shortly.”

She didn’t bother to hide her irritation when she stepped out into the hall with the headmaster.

“Well, Albus,” she asked him, “what do you need?”

“My connection to the wards is gone. We need to get to the heartstone and see what is wrong,” he said, quickly, gesturing for her to proceed him down the hall.

He frowned when she just frowned at him.

“This is why I keep telling you that you need to pay more attention to the school, Albus,” she told him with a sigh, “if you did, you would already know that the goblins sent one of their best ward masters to renew the wards. It has been too long for a routine check.

“Now,” she said firmly, “I need to get back to class. The wards will be connected back to us within a couple of days.”

With that, he watched her walk calmly back into her classroom. He frowned deeply. This just would not do; the wards were functioning just fine. He supposed that he would have to find the goblin and have a chat with them.

Goblins liked profit, he knew, so he had no concerns about being able to convince the creature that whatever they planned to do was not necessary.

~~

Enyo was sitting next to the heartstone in the wardroom of Hogwarts. She had her tablet out and was working with her holo projections to make sure that she had all the existing wards and their anchors listed. She also had the area affect zone of each ward over the map. She had used a color coded system for the basic types of wards and all her notes were in gobbledygook. 

Looking over her notes, she frowned. The wards had been set up to be powered by ambient magic let off by the student and staff, rather than the lay lines that converged on the grounds. That would have to change or the wards would continue to fluctuate in power with the size of the student body. It was a huge problem to her that the magical castle wasn’t sentient; by it’s age and rate of magical absorption the school should have developed a personality. Maybe it had, but the small size of the current student body effected the castles ability to be heard.

She felt the proximity ward that she had put up leading to the wardroom and she glanced to the door before channeling a bit of magic to her personal shields. 

“Sal, mute the music, please.”

As she waited for her visitor to arrive, she double-checked her display and made sure that any temporary wards she had put up were layered on the map in the blue of Tony’s arc reactor. She started checking the ward runes that surrounded the heartstone and could find nothing wrong with them other than the lack of power. The layering was well done, just old fashioned, as it should be, given how old it was. She had a feeling that any problems would be in wards _not_ connected to the heartstone. She could feel them all around the castle and so exploring she would go.

“Who are you?” came a curious voice from the door.

She looked up at the man she had known she would see at some point that day. He was fairly far into the latter half of his wizarding years, with long white hair and a beard to match. His robes were in a deep royal blue with gold trim and a matching pointed hat.

“Hello,” she said, with her best ‘appease the client’ smile, “I am Enyo Jones.”

“Are you the ward master that Gringotts sent?” he asked, tilting his head slightly, “I had expected a goblin.”

“I am,” she said, holding the smile, “might I ask, are you Headmaster Dumbledore?”

“I am,” he said with a small smile in return. “Aren’t you quite young to be a ward master?”

“No,” was all she said to that question. She didn’t believe that her age had anything to do with her various talents, and neither did her teachers.

Maribell would have been proud of her for not rolling her eyes. 

Dumbledore seemed taken aback by the almost lack of answer. Once he realized that she wasn’t going to elaborate, he just quirked an eyebrow at her while she waited to see what he was going to say to her. She was going to put her goblin training into full effect. Which mainly meant that getting any information from her would be like pulling teeth.

She remained standing, endlessly patient with a stoic little smile on her face while Dumbledore floundered. He seemed to want to treat her like a student, but couldn’t, as she refused to act like one. He finally huffed out a sigh and straightened to his full height and power.

“I have not noticed that anything is amiss with the wards of the castle,” he said with as much authority as he could, “I am certain that your services are not needed. If you will follow me, I will escort you from the grounds.”

Enyo expressed her irritation by tightening her occlumency shields rather than anything visible. She herself straightened her posture into a rigid, obviously offended stance.

“With all due respect, Headmaster,” she said, stiffly, “I am under contract and will be staying here to complete the terms.”

“Now see here, young lady,” Dumbledore said, affronted, “I run this school and so I decide who does what here.”

“No, sir,” she said decisively (and maybe a little meanly), “you do not.”

It took an impressive amount of control to keep from laughing at the expression that crossed his face before it settled into one of gentle disappointment. She wondered if he had once been much better at this kind of thing or if dealing with children had given him a false sense of his abilities.

Given the other positions the man held, she really hoped it was the former.

Enyo waited to see what he would say next. It was mildly suspicious that the man in charge of the safety of the school didn’t want the wards checked. Most of the school administrators that she had met were fanatical about the safety of their students, so this didn’t really line up. She would see to the wards, though, whether he wanted her to or not.

He just kept looking at her like he expected her to break down and confess to some reckless highjinks or shenanigans that would lead to a detention. (She was quite familiar with the look, actually.) Really, did the man treat everyone as though they were unruly students? She flipped through the information that she knew about the man and the number of years that he had been the headmaster of the _only_ magical school in Great Brittan, it was entirely possible that he had had most of the adult population of the islands as students.

No wonder Britain was so backward. Ugh.

So, she waited. And watched him wait. She really had no idea what he expected of her, at all, and the silence that was dragging on had to end, one way or another, and if he wasn’t inclined to do so, she would.

“Well, if you well excuse me,“ she said, dragging out the client smile again, “I must get back to work.”

It took everything she had to turn her back on the man and go back to recording and deciphering the runes sequences around the heartstone. She had faith in her personal protections, but nothing was perfect. She resisted showing her tension in her shoulders and face while she waited to find out what he would do.

She was quite surprised when he made an angry, disappointed noise and left. She relaxed once her proximity ward pinged at her senses to let her know that he had passed back through them. That had been odd. She had not thought the Headmaster would be _that_ against having the wards renewed, him being the one to push it off, or not. 

She hadn’t expected it, at all, actually. She had been told that something fishy was going on at the school, but now, well. It was another thing altogether to suspect the _headmaster_ was behind it. The last thing that she would be complacent about was her little brother’s safety at school.

Hell, no.

~~

By the late afternoon, Enyo had marked out several places that she needed to investigate. The wards were warped around a section of the seventh floor, the (currently) infamous third floor, as well as a haunted bathroom on the second floor. Other than those three places, any of the wards, spell and runic protections that had been set separate from the school wards would dissipate once the heartstone had a greater power source, including those set around the headmasters offices and rooms. Once the heartstone was running full force, anything cast in the castle or on the grounds would be temporary unless they were later written into the ward schema. 

She had put the interference of the headmaster out of her mind. The consequences that he would face would be dire should he try to keep her from completing the contract, much less the results of him actually trying to harm her. For now, she would leave it be.

It was just about time for dinner, and she should probably get to the great hall. The next morning would be soon enough for her to check out the hot spots that she had found in the castle. She’d leave the third floor for last, since, given the rumors, it was the most likely to be watched.

Dinner was uneventful. She chatted with Severus and Filius Flitwick while Dumbledore studiously ignored her presence, much to the annoyance of Professor McGonagall. Enyo didn’t mind, at all, enjoying the light banter that passed at the end of the table she was on. She took the time to wring a promise to duel from the charms master. She didn’t tell him that she had been adopted into the New York clan, but she had a feeling it wouldn’t take him long to figure out.

She made sure to send a note to both Draco and Harry to let them know she would visit with them the next day during their free time before dinner. She hadn’t expected to see Draco during the term, so would take this opportunity to do so. And Harry, well, why not? He seemed like a good kid. Maybe she’d put them through their paces and see how their physical self-defense practice was going with that club they had started.

She was, more or less, pleased with how her first day in the castle had gone. Much of the work was already done and she had plenty of time to visit the Centaur colony in the Forbidden Forest and to investigate the oddities of the castle itself before she would wrap things up in a nice report for the Board. The goblins wouldn’t care what else she did, as long as the contract was fulfilled within the time constraints, which as written, gave her all the time she may need.

The next morning found her eating breakfast in the rooms that had been provided for her. She asked the house elf that brought her food if an elf might be available for her to ask questions of if needed. Before she was done, she had the name of an elf, Elsie, who would have the time to help her out if needed.

She was happy for the forethought when she finally made her way to the seventh floor. As she lowered the shields that kept her natural aptitudes for magic from overwhelming her in magic rich locations, she could _feel_ a wisp of the darkest magic she could ever remember encountering coming from somewhere on the floor. There was a horcrux here somewhere.

The question was, how to get to it.

“Elsie,” she called out softly, glad that the students were in class and she didn’t have an audience.

With a quite pop, a confident looking, mature house elf dressed in a shift with the Hogwarts crest on the front appeared before her in the hall.

“How can I help you, Miss?” she asked Enyo as she bowed low.

“Are you able to tell me how the enchantments on this floor work?” Enyo asked, genuine curiosity coloring her voice. 

“Yes, miss,” she smiled, her ears wiggling happily, “This is the ‘come-and-go room’ and the ‘room-of-hidden-things.’ The first becomes what a person wants, made from what is available in the castle. The second is where lost or hidden things are kept.”

Enyo hummed, considering the answer, “And how, Elsie, do I activate the enchantments?”

Enyo already liked the playful elf and decided that she liked her even more when Elsie started to pace back and forth with a mocking look of fierce concentration on her face and stroked her chin like she was thinking very hard. A door appeared in the wall and disappeared as soon as the elf stopped and straightened out of her pose.

Enyo laughed as the elf winked and popped out of sight.

“Thank you, Elsie,” she whispered before she did some pacing of her own, thinking hard about getting to the horcrux.

“Huh,” she said when a door did appear. 

It was not _at all_ like the door that had appeared for the elf. _This_ door was just large enough for Enyo. The door was carved with runes that, when deciphered, would only allow the person who called the door _through_ the door. It also promised a fiery reception (literally) to anyone else who tried the door.

Well, score one point for the sentience the castle was close to having.

“Jack,” she called on her family’s house elf, “bring me a nullification bag from my quarters in Boston, please.”

Jack knew better than to outright appear in Hogwarts, but was an experienced enough elf to drop the bag at her feet anyway. She grinned and thanked him before she picked it up, tightened her shields back down and strode through the door.

~~

_Branch Manager Longfang,_

_Please forgive me for not bringing this to you in person, but I could not, while under my current contract, leave the property that is Hogwarts until I have fulfilled my duties._

_Enclosed in the warded pouch that should have come to you by way of my house elf, Jack, is a horcrux. I believe the item is the Ravenclaw diadem, but could not be sure without verification. Given that Tom Riddle was a student at Hogwarts, it might be another of his._

_The wards on the pouch should prove to be no challenge for a goblin of your great talents. Please let me know what you conclude and if this item is helpful in the horde’s quest to find and eradicate the horcuxes of the man in question._

_May your enemies tremble in your wake,_

_Master Wardsmith Enyo Jones_

Longfang read the missive a second time before he put it down and warily eyed the pouch that was on the desk in front of him.

It looked like a standard nullification pouch, but he knew that it was a pouch made by Enyo herself. It would make his life easier if he just handed if off to another of their ward masters, but as an upstanding goblin, he could not back down from the challenge presented in Enyo’s note.

Damn it.

He sighed and got to work. “No problem” his wrinkled ass. These were likely to be the most difficult wards that he’d ever had to get through himself.

He comforted himself with the idea that they were _probably_ not lethal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and Kudos are love!


	5. Problems Addressed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enyo gets started on the extra bits of her Hogwarts mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to anyone who has been waiting! Life is this thing that I get wrapped up in, sometimes...

The room that the playful house elf had called the “come-and-go” room was vastly interesting.

The enchantments that allowed the room to become whatever was desired by the petitioner were brilliantly done. Enyo had never seen anything like it, before and doubted that she would ever see anything like it, again. The person who had created the room was a genius, the question was just whether or not they were also insane.

Who puts a room like that in a _school_? Seriously, she wasn’t much older than many of the students at Hogwarts, and she knew exactly what she could get up to with something like that at her disposal. Thankfully, the room did have limits. From what she could read in the spells, the room couldn’t provide anything not already existing in the castle, and couldn’t provide things that were the personal property of others.

However, the “room-of-hidden-things” was both more and less interesting. 

It was less interesting because it was an unorganized mess. The room was a maze of piles and stacks of junk. Broken furniture, torn clothing, pens, textbooks, mirrors and so on and so on. Anything and everything that had been lost or shoved out of the way over the many, many years that the school had been open.  
It was more interesting because _anything and everything_ that had been “lost” and unclaimed within Hogwarts was there. Such as the pile of portraits that she’d stumbled across (literally) while shaking off some strange, moth eaten cloak that tried to smother her as she walked by.

A pile of portraits of _The Founders of Hogwarts_. 

Of course, for her, the most interesting portrait was of Salazar Slytherin. She decided that she was going to put the portrait in her rooms for the duration of her stay. She had some things to ask the founder of her magical line, after all. The man had a snake wrapped around him that had _hissed_ at her. And she understood it. 

What the hell.

Damn, she loved freelance working. She got the most _interesting_ jobs. 

After she was done exploring the room to her content, she decided to leave it and its enchantments alone. It seem, if not terribly safe, not entirely dangerous. Not many seemed to stumble upon these rooms, much less anyone who could figure out how to utilize them to their full potential. Enyo figured that it would be even harder to find once the wards were fully powered.

It was later than she thought when she left the odd storage room and made her way back to her guest suite. She would eat lunch in her rooms, if only to avoid the stares of the older students. She didn’t want to be dodging them, after all, and it was only a matter of time before her youth gave them the courage they needed to start approaching her.

Aside from that, it would be much more interesting to question the portrait.

~~

“So,” Enyo asked, “you are telling me that I can speak to snakes and there is a whole branch of magic that can only be performed by snake speakers?”

The man in the portrait, Salazar Slytherin himself, nodded sharply at her and confirmed her conclusion. He wasn’t so crass as to roll his eyes at her, after all.

Salazar had been a tall, well muscled man with hair so black that is shone with blue highlights, bronze skin, sharp aristocratic features and bright, ice blue eyes. The contrast of it all was startling.

It had taken them a few minutes to come to a common language they could speak to one another in. He had died _long_ before English was widely spoken, even in England, much less by the Nobility of Europe. His first language was a Spanish so formal it barely sounded like what she knew and his next most comfortable language was French. 

Unless you counted this “Parseltongue” that he was telling her about.

“And how do I go about learning this language?”

He scoffed at her before he answered, “It is innate. You were born to it. How have you gone through your life and not chanced upon a snake that spoke to you?”

She laughed, “I imagine that my upbringing was vastly different then you are supposing. I was raised in the United States, after all, which is part of the Americas that weren’t colonized by the Spanish until the 1400s. Much time has passed since you were in the know about the world.”

He frowned mightily and their conversation turned to general history before he eventually burst out with a question that had obviously been plaguing him.

“What happened to my line?” he asked her, “I never thought I would have a descendant so, well, so ignorant.”

He looked so offended at his own words that she had to laugh before she address his concerns with a seriousness that he appreciated.

“I don’t think any of the lines I belong to thought they would ever see a person like me at the end. However,” she told him, “magic chose me to carry on your line, as your last _natural_ descendant is little more than an insane stain on magic. A wraith who cannot sustain himself.”

By the expression on Salazar’s face, he would have paled if he could have. 

“Would you tell me what happened,” he asked with a strained voice, his snake hissing at him in concern, “and then tell me about yourself?”

“I can,” she told the portrait, “but it will have to wait. I am here in the school to do a job. I need to check out what ever is going on with the second floor; the wards there are acting strange.”

“On the second floor?” the portrait smirked. “I can tell you why, if you tell me why you are here.”

Enyo agreed, easily enough, “I am here to renew the wards, contracted by the Board of Hogwarts Governors, through the goblins.”

“There is something wrong with the wards? How?” He questioned her, intrigued. 

“No, there really isn’t. From what I can tell, the wards are just really underpowered and have been for far too long. I am going to re-key them to be powered by the ley lines on the property and that should take care of any issues with the wards.”

“If you aren’t actually here to repair the wards,” he asked shrewdly, “why are you here?”

“Eh, the Board is dealing with hysterical parents due to some rumors about a cerberus within the castle. So,” she grinned, “if I happen to take care of whatever that issue is while I am here, the Board would be _ever_ so grateful.”

“Why you?” he asked with genuine curiosity. “You can’t be much older than the students here.”

“Ah-ah,” she chided him, “I really do have to get to work. But! I’ll compromise. I will leave Sal here with you while I am gone. He will answer whatever questions that he can while I am gone. I do need to hear what you have to say about the second floor, though.”

Salazar made a small moue of disappointment but his expression cleared readily enough when he started talking about the secret chamber under the school.   
And the basilisk that he had had to leave in it when he’d left the school.

Great.

At least he made sure she _could_ actually talk to snakes before she went to check it out.

~~

When she walked into the bathroom on the second floor, she was immediately assailed by a ghost.

The ghost was wailing and crying incoherently, so rather than deal with it, she waved a freezing spell at her that would actually work and not harm the ghost. Once she was immobile, she moved it over to a stall and shut her in. It wouldn’t do for anyone to come in and panic over a frozen ghost.

It seemed odd, to her, to just have ghosts all over the damn place, but hey, American. She didn’t get a lot of things that these British wizards seemed to be into.   
She looked around the room and smirked. She wondered if Salazar meant for the entrance to his secret, underground lair to be in a girls bathroom. Likely not, but who knew what had been in the location over the years. She found the engraving that she was looking for an smiled.

She flicked a couple of spells at the door, a mild repelling spell and a more advanced locking charm than most students would know how to get around. After that, there was nothing left to do but try to get down below.

_”Open,”_ she said to the snake marked on the sink. 

Salazar had told her that, with practice, she would be able to speak without a snake present and she could definitely feel the difference in the cadence of her voice along her vocal cords. 

The sink slid back and rearranged itself into a round passageway that framed a pipe that led downward. She looked around for another way down and snorted. Not for a moment did she believe that a dignified man like Salazar Slytherin would slide down the pipe. It was _clearly_ for the snake.

_”I don’t suppose I could get some stairs?”_ she asked the open space wryly.

The stone rumbled as it rubbed together and gleefully tumbled down into a beautiful set of stairs that even had a hand rail following the spiral down. 

“Cheers,” she said cheekily as she walked out onto the landing before asking the door to close behind her.

Once the sink slid back into place behind her, she lowered her shields, again. The magic beyond the sink was vastly different in feel from the magic that saturated the rest of the castle. She could feel it moving around her and almost panicked when it latched on to her earth magic until she felt how pleased the magic around her was.

Huh. 

The chamber wasn’t set up for a parselmouth, it was set up for the Slytherin heir. She bet that before the horcrux was removed from Harry, he would have been able to get in, as well, parseltongue or not.

The walls lit up around her as she made her way down the steps and followed the corridor toward the entry to the actual chamber. She looked around avidly, taking everything in with great interest. She snapped her fingers (a childhood habit picked up from house elves) at a shed snake skin and it rolled itself up neatly and floated itself into the bag she always carried with her. It would make a lovely gift for Severus. 

The door that she eventually came to was certainly eye-catching. 

She watched with amusement as the last snake slithered around the edge of the door and it popped open. She looked around quickly before she shut her eyes and walked in the room. Salazar had told her that her family magic would protect her from the gaze of his familiar, but she wasn’t about to put it to the test without asking the snake himself.

Just as she reached the middle of the large, stone chamber, she heard a sibilant voice question her presence.

~~

“Sir?”

“Yeah, Jay,” Tony asked, not quite looking up.

He was poking around in Enyo’s programming language. He also had a screen full of known runes on display and thought he was getting somewhere in figuring out how it worked. The translations program was _much_ easier, as it should be, considering it was made to work between magical and non-magical programming.

How did someone write a computer language in runes, anyway?

“Salazar is asking to speak to you,” JARVIS informed him.

“He is? He can just come through, he doesn’t need to ask,” Tony finally looked away from his display.

“Yes, sir, as we have both invited him, many times. However, he has said that he would not be so rude to invade if it is not an emergency.”

“Well, put him through, let’s see what he wants,” Tony said, curious.

“Thank you, Dr. Stark,” the rolling Castilian accent came through.

“What can I help you with, Sal,” Tony asked, “I thought Enyo would have you busy in Scotland or wherever she went.”

“She does, sir, but you had expressed interest in her magical lines and I have something for you,” Salazar said with satisfaction.

Tony sat up abruptly, grinning, “Do tell!”

On the screen in front of Tony, a video opened up, showing a portrait of what Tony would have called an aristocrat from old Spain. He would soon find out that he wasn’t wrong. He knew that his image must be projected in the room the portrait was in from one of Enyo’s tablets.

He was processing that the portrait was moving when it spoke to him. In _French_. Thankfully, he was fluent in the language; Sal must have let him know.

“Good evening,” the man said formally, “I am Salazar Slytherin, the former Lord Slytherin. Who might you be?”

Tony’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead in surprise. He hadn’t been expecting it to be the founder of one of Enyo’s magical lines.

“I am Anthony Stark, Owner and CTO of Stark Industries,” he introduced himself in return, “it is a pleasure to meet one of Enyo’s magical ancestors.”

One of Salazar’s eyebrows went up in return, “You are familiar with her, then, to use her given name?”

There was a certain inflection on the man’s words that made Tony wary about how he answered the question. From what little he had heard about Hogwarts, the school was old and this man had been one of its founders. At the end of the tenth century. He had no idea what the formalities of the time had been.

“I am,” Tony said cautiously, “I have known her family for a couple of years. Her family saved my life and Enyo has helped me safely through battle. Now, we work closely on several projects for both of our companies.”

“You are merchants,” Salazar stated before he waved it away, “I doubt that I even know what that means in your current time. However, this clever contraption had told me that you wanted to know about my heir’s magical line.”

Tony grinned at the tablet and Sal being called a “contraption.” It was a much better reaction than most persons from the tenth century would have. He supposed that it help that the man had been a wizard. Magic made very little impossible.

If magicals had _talking_ and _sentient_ portraits as far back as the 10th century, a talking and sentient computer program probably wasn’t too odd for them.

Tony _hated_ (not really) that his world now included explanations that were “it’s magic.” At least he had two witches and a squib willing to actually do their best to explain it all to him. 

And now, a wizard. One of the most powerful wizards there ever was, if what he’d been told was correct.

This was just too good to pass up. 

He had to fight the glee off his face when the Slytherin looked at him sternly and said, “ You will, of course, keep the information to yourself? Excepting, of course, my descendant.”

His glee slowly soured into consternation and eventually contemplation. 

What Enyo told him had been correct. Magic was unexplainable. Magical Theory was made up by people who thought themselves smart and who wanted to _understand_ something beyond what should be obvious.

Magic, if a being could access it, was based on will and intent. The more powerful you were, the less you needed spells (which were just short cuts) and wands. 

Which did much to explain Enyo and the fact that she approached magic so differently from the way that Maribell did. Enyo had a vast reserve of power that most magicals just didn’t have. She could execute magic with little more than a thought.

He was suddenly very, _very_ happy that Enyo and her family were good people, firmly _on his side_ , regardless of where that would lead them in the end.

Once the issue was resolved in the back of his mind, he listened intently to Salazar Slytherin as he talked about Earth Magic and Parselmagic. 

He found it mildly entertaining that even Enyo hadn’t known that she could talk to snakes. Now that she had been informed (he couldn’t wait to hear about the giant snake she was dealing with at that very moment), he wondered what kind of snake she’d end up with.

There was _no way_ that she wouldn’t get one. Probably something exotic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it. Kudos and/or comments are welcome.


End file.
